One of my favorite easy salmon flies is the Whale River Rat -- basically a simplified version of the original Rat (before it got chewed to inspire the Rusty Rat), with a peacock tail and body, grizzly collar, and squirrel tail wing. The fussy tinsel tip and rib are omitted, which saves a little bit of tying time. I spin a few peacock herls in a dubbing loop with the tying thread for durability; it turns the fragile herls into a sort of peacock chenille and is stronger than over-wrapping them with a tinsel rib.

An even simpler, quicker variation is to omit the tail too and substitute synthetic peacock dubbing, like Arizona or Ice Dub. Dub the body, tie in some squirrel, wrap a couple of turns of collar, done. It's not as elegant, but the fish don't seem to care.

One of my favorite easy salmon flies is the Whale River Rat -- basically a simplified version of the original Rat (before it got chewed to inspire the Rusty Rat), with a peacock tail and body, grizzly collar, and squirrel tail wing. The fussy tinsel tip and rib are omitted, which saves a little bit of tying time. I spin a few peacock herls in a dubbing loop with the tying thread for durability; it turns the fragile herls into a sort of peacock chenille and is stronger than over-wrapping them with a tinsel rib.

An even simpler, quicker variation is to omit the tail too and substitute synthetic peacock dubbing, like Arizona or Ice Dub. Dub the body, tie in some squirrel, wrap a couple of turns of collar, done. It's not as elegant, but the fish don't seem to care.

Oh, this winter I've been tying fancier ones too -- rusty, silver, blue, green. (Also some similarly constructed Cossebooms.) But I can't tie them very fast, and in the summer if I need to replace a few in a hurry, the simpler tie is handy and effective.

Have you ever tried substituting the rusty orange floss on a Rusty Rat with fluorescent orange? I was thinking of trying that the other day, but I wondered if that much fluorescence would be too gaudy.

While these RR's were being tied for a customer, I've no doubt that a flouro would work well. The Cutty Sark is the one of most successful summer salmon flies I've ever seen, and a portion of its body is flouro...not to mention the tags on BBGB, Glitter bears, and on. Might be a big improvement, ya won't know til ya give it a swim.
Gary

Well, I doubt I'd call it a Rusty Rat if I tied it with fluorescent orange. Keith is an old friend...I hooked my first atlantic salmon with a black bear green butt he tied. I'll ask him what he thinks about that, although at 93, he probably doesn't care all that much about what its called. The fly in the photo you're referencing doesn't look all that flourescent, but then the photography in the book as a whole could be better. Look at the difference between the orange floss on the Bondatti's Killer on page 96, which is classically tied with fluorescent orange, and the Rusty Rat on page 128.
In the scheme of things in the universe, probably doesn't matter all that much.
Gary

P.S. apologies to those that don't have the book. Not that big a deal, though, really.

Just curious but didn't the original call for Silver Monkey for the wing.

I believe the original Rat, as tied by Roy Angus Thompson (hence "RAT"), had a simple wing of mixed white and black hair. Clovis Arsenault used black-and-white grey fox guard hair for his Rusty Rat, and that has become the most common wing for the whole series of Rats today. I believe it was Charlie DeFeo (Gary: did you fish with him too?) who substituted silver monkey hair for a banded effect. Other substitutes include grey squirrel tail hair and woodchuck guard hair. The essential element in all the variations is the mix of black and white.